I wrote a column last week about now being a great time to sell and since reading that, people have asked me what time frames are best for sellers who can’t be on the market right now but do want to sell soon.
As a seller, it is important to be conscious of what is in a buyer’s head to ensure you are maximizing any leverage you might have.
If you are on the market now you have the opportunity to go under contract and, with a 35-day settlement period, hand over the keys before Christmas. Happy days for buyers who want to be in a house before Christmas.
But great opportunities are still there for sellers to get leverage from other important buyer considerations.
Sellers who list their property in the next three or four weeks have the opportunity to get their property under contract before Christmas and to settle in the new year.
Plenty of buyers are happy to get a property under contract between now and Christmas but not move in until late January.
But what is the situation for sellers who aren’t ready to go on the market before Christmas?
Well, one ship has sailed but a new one is pulling in. That one is full of all the buyers who will be desperate to buy in January. They will want to get through the Christmas/New Year madness and get serious in January.
Many of those January buyers will want to have something under contract before Australia Day, before the school year starts and before the working year really gets underway. It can be a great time to sell real estate.
I think that if you plan to sell in January you should, ideally, be ready to go for an open house on Saturday the 13th of January.
I tell my sellers that there are two options. The first is to get your property ready in December so I can arrange the listing documents and photos and do the write-up before the Christmas break so that everything is ready to go in the second week of January. When I am back at work I hit the button and we are on the market.
Alternatively, the cleaning up, decluttering, maintenance work etc can be done through December and over the Christmas/New Year period and I can arrange for photos early in the New Year. We can still be on the market and ready for an open house on the 13th of January.
The important thing is to work out what needs to be done to prepare the property, have a strategy for doing it and have a clear time-line in place so you can maximise the opportunity in the New Year.
If you are interested in exploring the options, give me a call and we can have a chat about what might work best for you.